Home Depot posts gains, but cautious shoppers remain a concern

Home Depot’s latest quarter showed a customer who still spends, but does not spend loosely. Sales rose to $41.8 billion in the first quarter, up 4.8% from a year earlier, while comparable sales increased only 0.6% overall and 0.4% in the U.S. At the same time, comparable customer transactions fell 1.3% and average ticket climbed 2.3% to $92.76. That mix matters because it suggests bigger baskets are coming from fewer trips, not a return to broad, carefree spending.

For Big Lots workers, that is a direct read-through on what shoppers are likely doing in stores that trade on value. Customers under pressure from housing costs, interest rates and general uncertainty are still spending on their homes, but they are more likely to delay larger projects and pick off the lower-risk purchases: decor, storage, seasonal goods and small fixes that fit a tighter budget. When Home Depot can say demand has stayed relatively similar to what it saw through fiscal 2025, even with greater consumer uncertainty, it reinforces a simple point for Big Lots: traffic is still there, but it is more selective and more deal-driven.

That changes the job on the sales floor. In a cautious market, merchandising is not just about keeping shelves full. It is about making sure the right value items are easy to find, easy to compare and easy to take home. The stores that keep moving product are likely to be the ones that pair low prices with clear presentation and quick help from associates, especially when shoppers want confidence they are getting the right item the first time. Home Depot’s own emphasis on customer service and hard work from associates underlines that service still carries real weight, even at scale.

The quarter also showed how fragile this kind of business can be when traffic gets uneven. Home Depot said it ended the period with 2,361 retail stores and more than 1,280 SRS locations, and it reaffirmed fiscal 2026 guidance for sales growth of roughly 2.5% to 4.5%. Big Lots has been operating from a much shakier base since it filed voluntary chapter 11 petitions on September 9, 2024, closed a sale to Gordon Brothers Retail Partners on January 3, 2025, and later saw Variety Wholesalers acquire 219 stores and reopen locations in April 2025. Kroll’s bankruptcy site says those chapter 11 cases were converted to chapter 7 effective November 10, 2025. For Big Lots, that makes every shift in shopper behavior feel immediate: value traffic is the business, and cautious consumers are the test.